The present disclosure is related with an image forming apparatus and an image formation method.
An image forming apparatus has print engine, which can print with high resolution, such as 1200 dpi (dot per inch.) In this case, when rasterizing process of image data is performed with high resolution, an amount of data after rasterizing process becomes large. Thus, processing time increases, and latency time to start a print operation is long.
Thus, there is a pseudo high resolution technology. In this case, a rasterizing process is performed in a low resolution, such as 600 dpi. Then, a screen process is performed to image data of the low resolution. After that, it converts into image data of high resolution (for example, 1200 dpi,) that is printable with print engine. Thereby, smoothing of edge is performed. There are effects, such as reduction of a jaggy of edge of a character, or the like, stabilization of a gradation characteristic, and reduction of moiré. In a typical apparatus, pattern matching is used to the image before smoothing, and a pixel value after smoothing is determined.